The Great American Beer Festival

How we got there
Parking in downtown Denver is always dicey at best but during an event? Rough doesn't even cut it. Our transportation system can't be beaten though- especially since they have started putting in the trains. We parked our car for free outside of the park and ride station off Broadway (normally it's $4, but if you're willing to walk, find parking for free and just walk to the station). Then we paid $5.20 for two tickets there, 4 stops later, and we were dropped off right in front of the Convention Center, where the Great American Beer Festival was being held. It was super convenient- and even more useful when we were sauced and had to get home!

Entry
The line to get in started long before the starting time. We had Saturday afternoon tickets, which were members only, so it was supposed to be slower. However, the line to get in snaked completely around the convention center, which is an 800,000 square foot building. It took maybe 30 minutes to get to security, but once we were there, they moved fast. We removed everything that was metal, went through the metal detectors, scanned our tickets, and we were in!

Everyone waiting to get in- tons of people!

Our tasting glasses were real glass. This was a bit of a problem on concrete floors.

The Beer Experience
All the breweries were laid out by location- A started on the upper east coast, moving south and then west. By noon we had hit one small corner of the convention center, meandering our way from brewery to brewery and stopping at the ones that had descriptive beer names. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I really love fruity beers, and I'm not into ones that are heavily hopped. Saisons, goses, and cream ales were some of my favorites. At the last Mile High Beer Festival I attended, I realized that I could not remember the name of any of my favorite beers, so this year I took photos of some of my favorites so that I could remember them more easily. My absolute favorite was a pomegranate gose from Three Notched Brewing Company in Virginia. There were a ton of good ones, however.

One of their beers was called Winter is Here- I'm a sucker for a fun name


The one called The Last Unicorn caught my eye here

The Food Experience
This was probably the worst part of the festival, unfortunately. We stopped at one of the vendors that were provided by the convention center and paid $16 for one cold burger and even colder fries. I think we missed the good food in the Paired presentation, where restaurants provided small plates paired with specific beers. I believe you had to have a separate ticket for that though. Anyway, a pretzel necklace would have been nice. I did end up waiting in line for a cheese buffet, which was delicious.

The People
Everyone I met, from the brewers to the attendees to the security staff, were super nice. Even after some of them were obviously drunk, no one seemed to get angry or frustrated. There were no outside food or drink allowed; except for what you could wear. So there were some interesting pretzel necklaces. There was even a gentleman who had a pretzel hat!

Conclusion
All in all, it was a great time! We tried a ton of beers, got about halfway through the breweries, met some fun people, and did I mention tried a ton of good beer? I think I would have slowed down a little, collected some additional swag, and maybe taken advantage of some of the other things that were available besides the beer. I highly recommend the festival if you get a chance to go!

Photos and text are property of Sunravelme